Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell told reporters Monday that a recent wave of performance cancellations has totally ruined his seasonal celebrations.
"I had my whole December mapped out—Christmas Eve jazz, New Year's Eve jazz, just wall-to-wall live entertainment," said Grenell, explaining that cancellations for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve had left gaping holes in his social calendar. "Now what am I supposed to do? Spend time with family? Read a book? This is a disaster."
The cancellations began after the board voted to rename the institution "The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts," a change Grenell insisted was completely uncontroversial and definitely would not affect programming in any way.
"I genuinely cannot understand why The Cookers wouldn't want to perform here," said Grenell, seated beneath newly installed signage adding Trump's name to the building's exterior. "We saved this place. Sure, we fired the entire board, installed Trump as chairman, and renamed a memorial established by federal law, but artists should be grateful we're even letting them perform."
Jazz septet The Cookers announced their cancellation days before their scheduled New Year's Eve shows, writing that they wanted to ensure "the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music." Grenell characterized this as "classic intolerance" and said the center would seek one million dollars in damages from artists who dare to breach contracts for political reasons—a concept he found deeply offensive despite his own boss having spent the year aggressively reshaping the Kennedy Center for explicitly political purposes.
When reminded that the law creating the center prohibits renaming the building and that Rep. Joyce Beatty said she was muted on the call and not allowed to speak during the "unanimous" vote," Grenell dismissed these concerns as "minor technicalities" that had nothing to do with artists suddenly finding other plans.
The Kennedy Center president added that he's now considering legal action against anyone who won't perform at the venue, explaining that forcing artists to entertain him against their will is actually the true spirit of artistic freedom. "The arts are for everyone," Grenell declared, before noting that by "everyone" he specifically meant people willing to perform at a venue named after his boss without complaint.
